Trial for man accused of killing Eric Pegues pushed to 2019

The man accused of killing Winston-Salem hip-hop promoter Eric Pegues in May 2016 likely won’t face trial until 2019.

Eric Pegues, a 41-year-old hip-hop promoter, was fatally shot in the parking lot of the Paper Moon Gentleman’s Club at closing time in the early morning hours of May 25, 2016.

Pegues had developed a fruitful partnership with Brad McCauley and Charles Womack, two co-owners of the final incarnation of Ziggy’s, which had closed months earlier. Pegues brought hip-hop artists with national stature like Snoop Dogg, Kevin Gates, Future and Lil’ Boosie to Ziggy’s. His success as an entrepreneur drew on deep community ties: He helped serve free meals and organized at least one protest against police abuses. On the night he was killed, his friend Cedric Duke, who was working security at Paper Moon, admonished Pegues to not party too hard because they were planning to serve a meal the following afternoon.

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On Monday, the man accused of killing Pegues made an appearance before a superior court judge in the Forsyth County Hall of Justice. With tattoos covering his head, neck and arms, and with hands cuffed in front of him, 41-year-old Sierras Cobb wore a blue jumpsuit issued by the Forsyth County Law Enforcement Detention Center.

First-degree murder is only one of the felonies Cobb faces, along with possession of a firearm by a felon, habitual felon, possession with intent to sell or distribute marijuana and accessory in a separate murder case. A prosecutor told Judge L. Todd Burke that the Forsyth County District Attorney’s office was willing to reduce his first-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter and consolidate the remaining charges if Cobb agreed to take a plea deal.

“Yes sir, that’s correct,” Cobb responded when Burke asked him to confirm that he was rejecting the deal.

Burke scheduled Cobb’s next appearance on the accessory to murder charge for April 16, and his next appearance for habitual felon and possession of a firearm by a felon for June 4. Burke noted that Cobb’s lawyer, Nils Gerber, has another capital case coming up later this year, so Burke said Cobb’s first-degree murder charge probably won’t go to trial until 2019. Cobb has already received a five-year federal sentence for possession of a firearm by a felon, which he must serve separately from any prison time that comes out of his state charges.

An indictment for accessory after the fact to murder issued last year alleges that on May 27, 2015 Cobb assisted a man named Anthony Abran by driving him away from a murder scene and helping him dispose of a gun. Abran pleaded guilty to the crime in November 2016. An affidavit attached to a search-warrant application by Winston-Salem police Detective J. Morisette states that at about 3:20 a.m. Cpl. GW Lovejoy responded to gunfire at the intersection of East 25^th Street and North Jackson Avenue near the Piedmont Park Apartments community. Lovejoy found 28-year-old Delmorio Lamontae Blockson slumped in the front passenger seat of a black 2015 Chrysler 200 and dead from an apparent gunshot wound. The affidavit also says Detective Morisette learned Blockson had been in a fight prior to the shooting.

Sierras Cobb also faces felony charges of possession of marijuana with intent to sell or distribute and maintaining a vehicle or dwelling place for controlled substances.

Cobb is being held without bond in the Forsyth County jail on a federal detainer and the first-degree murder charge.